An Ohio man is now awake from a coma after he suffered “at least” 20,000 bee stings last week.
Austin Bellamy, 20, was in a tree trimming branches with his grandmother and uncle below when he “unknowingly” cut a bee’s nest, WXIX-TV reported.
His grandmother Phyllis Edwards told the news station bees came out of the nest when he started to cut them and he had difficulties anchoring himself.
“He was hollering, ‘Help! Help me! Help!’ And nobody would help him,” she said.
“I was going to try and climb the ladder to get to Austin. ... I seen how high he was ... but I couldn’t get to him because I was surrounded in bees.”
Bellamy’s mother, Shawna Carter, described the attack as looking like her son had a “black blanket” from his head to his neck and onto his arms.
Both Bellamy’s grandmother and uncle were also attacked by bees, Carter told WCPO-TV, mentioning that they left stingers roughly 1-inch long in her son.
“When I rubbed his head on Friday before they airlifted him here, he felt like he was becoming a porcupine. That is how pokey they were,” Carter said.
Bellamy’s family said he was stung at least 20,000 times during the frightening attack and his mother added that he ingested approximately 30 bees, too.
Carter told WCPO-TV that her son suffered a kidney failure and medical officials had to suck bees out of his airways over the weekend.
Doctors said Bellamy ― who was previously in a coma at the University of Cincinnati Medical Center ― would fully recover from the attack, WXIX-TV reported.